Two weeks ago I researched, then bought four Motorola/Verizon Droids for my family. Without my research and influence, we’d probably have bought two Blackberries for the adults and dumbphones for the children.

Today I learned that Motorola is running ads, “Pretty”, explaining that Droids aren’t for “princesses”, trade “hair-do for can-do”, and by implication are not for women. (Yes, I do occasionally call my daughter “princess”. She’s currently attending an Ivy League institution.) My daughter and I are currently discussing buying ornamental skins for our Droids; I do hope this won’t crash the Android operating system.

I make over $100,000 a year. I work in high tech. And I control major purchasing decisions. Why are you running advertisements suggesting that your product is primarily for men?

The addresses are all there for you if you should feel the urge to write a letter yourself. The email’s author tells me she guessed them based on the standard address format used by the companies in question, and says that none of them bounced. (Some guesses that did bounce have been removed from the list above.)

And here’s the ad in question:

Another blog post on the subject, which I came across yesterday via the geekfeminism tag on delicious is Girls are still icky, over at Coyle’s InFormation. I’m sure there are more out there, so feel free to link them in comments.

9 thoughts on “Motorola Droid: why don’t you want my business?”

Watches ad, *sighs in exasperation*. The princess part doesn’t bother me as much as the “digitally clueless beauty pageant queen” part. Implying that if you are beautiful, you are naturally clueless about technology. Kind of all goes back to the girly != geeky issues.

The other thing is that they’re like, “Design? Who needs that? I mean we’ll just make it look like a brick and tell people that we’re so edgy because we eschew design (and use big words like eschew) that they’ll buy it, right?”

Also, anyone else note the tonnes fo phallic symbols they decided to use when telling everyone how awesome they are?

I got this email from a Verizon rep… has anyone else received similar responses? The “Pretty” commercial still on their Youtube Channel and I don’t watch enough TV to know if they’ve actually stopped using it.

Dear Mr. —-:

Thanks for your email. While it is never our intention to insult anyone with our advertising, I agree that this creative missed the mark. The ad will no longer run. Thanks for your comments and happy holidays to you also.

I actually kind of enjoy the droid’s advertising campaign. They’re carving themselves a niche of “it’s a phone, not a fashion accessory” which is somewhat hilarious because they then market it as… some sort of macho fashion accessory. It’s hard not to love how ridiculous that is. Not a big fan of this particular advertisement (you can be macho without hinting at being anti-female) but the campaign in general amuses me.